Term-time-only pay: from the advertised salary to your monthly pay

A school job might advertise “£31,200 FTE, pro rata, term time only”. FTE means full-time equivalent: the salary for the reference full-time, full-year role. “Pro rata” means the amount is adjusted to reflect your contract. It does not tell you the adjustment by itself.

Figure	What you need to know
Full-time salary	The pay point and whether the advert already shows an actual, reduced salary
Weekly hours	Your paid hours and the employer’s full-time hours for this role
Worked and paid weeks	School weeks, any training days and the contractual holiday allowance
Payment arrangement	The annual gross total, number of instalments and any first-year adjustment

Ask whether lunch breaks are paid and whether inset or training days are included. Two posts with the same advertised salary can produce different annual pay if one includes more hours or additional working days.

Keep the offer, contract and payroll explanation together. An “actual salary” should already reflect the stated hours and weeks: applying both reductions again would understate your pay.

This invented contract uses a 52-week divisor, 37 full-time hours and 22.2 contracted hours a week. The employee works 38 weeks; payroll has confirmed 44 paid weeks, including the contract’s holiday allowance. The 44 weeks are an example contract figure, not a statutory entitlement or a recommendation.

Step	Calculation	Result
Weekly hours fraction	22.2 ÷ 37	60%
Salary for those hours across a full year	£31,200 × 60%	£18,720
Actual annual gross salary	£18,720 × 44 ÷ 52	£15,840
Gross monthly instalment	£15,840 ÷ 12	£1,320

For this contract, the formula is FTE salary × hours fraction × paid-weeks fraction. Using only the 38 worked weeks would produce £13,680 and miss the paid holiday included in this example. That is why “school weeks divided by 52” is not a reliable shortcut.

Use your employer’s stated method. Some contracts use a different full-year divisor or a separate holiday-pay calculation. The NJC term-time-only guidance for covered local government staff is a contract-specific reference, not a formula for every school or employer.

Employers can spread an annual salary over 12 monthly instalments. In the example, £1,320 arrives in a summer month as well as a working month. It is part of the same £15,840 annual amount; it is not an extra summer payment.

There is a distinction between receiving money during a non-working week and receiving pay for that week. Government holiday guidance makes that distinction when defining a part-year worker. Equal monthly instalments do not, on their own, establish that every week is paid.

If your employer pays only in working months, the bank-payment pattern will be different. Check the annual total and payday calendar before setting a monthly budget. Our irregular-pay budgeting guide can help you plan for gaps.

Term-time-only workers can be entitled to paid holiday. But a school closure is not automatically a paid holiday week, and “term time” does not put every worker under the same holiday calculation.

In England, Scotland and Wales, the part-year rules apply where a continuing contract requires work for only part of the year and includes at least one week with no required work and no pay for that period. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, eligible workers build up statutory holiday at 12.07% of hours worked in each pay period. A contract offering more holiday needs an adjusted percentage. Acas explains the eligibility and accrual rules.

Building up leave and paying for it are separate questions. Eligible part-year or irregular-hours workers may receive a separately identified rolled-up holiday payment, or holiday pay when leave is taken. If annual salary already includes the holiday amount, do not add another 12.07% without checking how payroll has calculated it. Ask where the holiday entitlement and payment appear.

Northern Ireland has separate rules. Do not apply the Great Britain reforms automatically. nidirect says holiday pay should be paid when leave is taken and rolled-up holiday pay is not permitted. Ask payroll which Northern Ireland rules and contractual terms it has used.

A teacher paid for the whole year under a teaching contract may have a different arrangement from term-time-only support staff. Check the contract rather than transferring a colleague’s formula; our teacher payslip guide covers that separate starting point.

Once payroll confirms the actual annual salary, enter that amount in the take-home pay calculator, with your country, tax year, pension and student-loan settings. For the worked example, the annual starting figure is £15,840, not £31,200.

Our pro-rata calculator can compare an hours or days reduction. It does not work out a term-time contract’s holiday allowance or decide how many weeks should be paid. Do not use a simple weekly-hours result as the final term-time salary.

An annual estimate also cannot reproduce every first payslip. Starting part-way through the year, previous earnings and the PAYE tax basis can change deductions. If the first payment differs, compare the gross-pay calculation before assuming the tax is wrong.

Ask payroll for a reconciliation when your contract starts or ends during the salary year. The amount earned under the contract and the instalments already paid may need to be compared. Do not assume that leaving before the summer produces either an automatic extra payment or an automatic debt.

Request separate figures for the covered dates, hours, holiday entitlement, payments already made and the resulting balance. If a pay award is backdated, check which hours and pay point applied in each period using our backdated pay-rise guide. For a leaving payment, use the final-payslip checklist.

A useful message is: “Please confirm my actual annual gross salary, the weekly-hours fraction, worked and paid weeks, holiday calculation and full-year divisor. How is that total spread across paydays, and how will it be reconciled if I join, leave or change hours during the year?”